Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Parenting versus GTness

Wow. Typing on my iPhone so this will be short. But, yeah you captured it precisely.

JB

I could have written your post, JB! The only exception we have is that DS6's 1st grade teacher knew precisely where he was at and loved him for it and did her best to challenge him. If he was less than challenged it was only because certain of the school's systems still don't let her cater to a kid like him, and because he didn't always want to be challenged and appear different from the rest of the kids.

I think we just have to do the best we can with these guys and the rest of the world be damned. They don't know OUR kids.

This line in one of the replies just confounds me:

God, we can't possibly have parents TEACHING kids things they don't know--what would the world come to if that happened? Knowledge would run rampant in the streets and the cities would be overrun with education. Heaven forbid.

<SNORT!>

Well-played, Nautigal!

Hi JB,
A couple of thoughts based on our experiences.... I have 2 children. My DD 9 has not been grade accelerated, but has a late July b-day and has always been among the youngest in her class. We have not gone the IQ route (although I sometimes think that was a mistake) so I can't provide a score, but I am (usually )confident in our assessment of her abilities for multiple reasons--not the least of which is that she was always clustered with "top" learners in her grade, most of whom were on the other side of the enrollment deadline, and therefore nearly a year ahead of her chronologically. All of them were well above grade level in reading and math. Despite having exhausted the district's elementary reading assessment in kindergarten, we have listened to an endless stream of minimizing comments suggesting that she isn't really "that unusual". Her school behaviors are compliant, but very disorganized and absent minded. She is not whipping through her work without error and becomes bored quickly with repetition.

She will tell me that "after 4 problems it's kind of hard to keep my mind on it. I start thinking about other things".

Her teacher will tell me, "Oh, I have harder work for her, but she can't finish the work she has, so she doesn't get to it like the other children".

Despite never finishing her work, she still took a state math assessment without a single error (and according to her, roughly 30 minutes left per section to sit and do nothing). Another family I know was told that their child had some strengths, but also some "holes", so didn't really need to be accelerated. The mentality of too many educators is to disprove high ability rather than to support it.

What I have found is this: over the past few years we have supported our daughter's interests in whichever directions they have taken us. It has taken awhile for her test taking skills/focus to catch up with her ability, but finally she is providing us with examples the school can't easily dismiss. Highly able children are still children. They aren't all eager to produce perfect work--especially when it's boring. When my DD was 6, it would take 30 minutes to copy her spelling words for homework (words like: friend, weather, etc.). Meanwhile her favorite game was "spelling bee"--during which she would beg us to give her words and would joyfully give us the spelling of "hydraulic" or "pyschology" or "tarantula".

This year, I was told that my DD9 couldn't do 3 digit subtraction. She wrote down the answers to 20 homework problems while I ran in and picked up subs for dinner (approximately 5 minutes) without making another mark on her paper. When I pointed to the directions (show your work), she sighed and spent the next *40 minutes* trying to go back and put her work on the paper. In the process of doing that, she got confused and changed several previously accurate answers. It's like asking someone with a highly accurate jump shot to slow it down into incremental motions. When the flow is interrupted/interfered with, the fluidity is lost. The shot will still go in at times, but far less often and with far less satisfaction.

Don't mistake the teacher's assessment of your DS's engagement and accuracy on work below his level for an accurate assessment of your child's ability. Keep giving him what he asks for. Eventually it will come together in a way that will be difficult for the school to ignore. In the meantime, you might want to save things that your DS does at home, or keep a journal. Be sure to make notes like, "DS asked me to show him....after he..." or "Suddenly DS is interested in __________. He asked me to _________"; This is a sample of the _______DS did after _______. He spent _________ minutes/hours working on it without stopping to ask for assistance". etc...

It sounds like you're doing a great job honoring your child's thirst for new ideas and skills. Don't let the school make you doubt yourself.

Nicely put Nautigal.

Kerry, you probably won't have much luck getting information from NWEA.
http://www.nwea.org/support/details.aspx?content=930

The flip side of FERPA is that it also gives you the right to review your child's records including testing. I'm surprised the school turned down your request. That seems to go against FERPA. Glad to hear she's not letting that stop her!

JBDad, I've had similar concerns about teaching GS9 things after school and on the weekends. One funny event spawned by this, his teacher was a bit exasperated after he once again said, "I know that, my grandma already taught me." She said, "Is there anything you've learned at school this year?" He said, "No, not really." haha, but I think he said it very innocently and truthfully because he didn't get in trouble!

This year, I pretty much came to accept I would be teaching him after school & weekends, and he would get increasingly further ahead of his classmates. But what is the alternative, let him veg out on TV & video games 5 hours/day, all day on weekends?

BTW, whoever posted about the 6 yr old daughter doing Greek this week, if she's still into it long term, let's get acquainted in 20 years! GS9 is loving his Greek & Roman history & mythology books!

I am sure if she was having problems and scoring too low they would have no problem telling you what areas you need to work on at home.

Mommy, how do you add 1,579 plus 2,596?
Oh I 'm sorry honey I can't teach you that until 3rd grade, would you like to play patty-cake instead?

So, let me see if I understand this idea correctly.

Educators (and many, many others) are in near-universal agreement that parental involvement with a child's education is very important --- nay, critical! --- to that child's success in school.

Unless, of course, Mom and/or Dad is teaching the kid something that hasn't been covered yet. In too many cases, this practice is somehow perceived as a bad thing and is wrong. If this weren't the case, why do we agonize over letting our kids do what they can do?

Did I get this right? Can someone explain this to me?

Val

Yeah, it pretty much demolishes the notion that the school is there for your child's education. What they're telling you is that they are there to make sure your child learns precisely and only what they want him to learn, which does not include how to think or how to learn anything else on his own.

This reminds me of a story my mother told about my brother's teacher in Kindergarten (California, 1960's). She found out that he already knew how to read, and told my mother that she shouldn't have taught him to read because "now he's going to have to unlearn everything and start over the way we do it here." Needless to say, he didn't have that teacher anymore after that remark.

I had an experience in college that was related in a way. It was a World Geography class, I believe, and I had continually challenged answers on tests that were marked wrong but were really correct. The professor always changed the answer key to match my challenges, and corrected my grades on the tests, but one time he just blew me away when I asked about some questions. He said he wasn't changing any more answers on the key, and he was "tired of carrying me". Excuse me, I had a 4.0 GPA and was running with a solid A in that class as well, so what the hell? It's not MY fault the answer key was wrong and I was right, and if the point was to learn the material, the right answers should matter and I should get the grade I deserved! But that showed me that the point was not to learn the material or get an education, but just not to make waves and make sure the staff got paid for being there.

That's what the school in question in this thread is about--being there and not stirring things up. They're lucky they don't have me.

But is the NWEA a grade level assessment? If so, and you miss things on it, shouldn't those areas be shored up?